God's Wrath shown to the Ungodly in Creation (22)

Dear Forum members,

When I wrote the last letter I introduced the subject of general revelation and common grace. As you recall, I said that even though general revelation is a concept that has had its own place in Reformed theology for centuries, I expressed uneasiness with the whole idea. My main objection was the fact that revelation, by virtue of the term itself, implies grace, and general revelation implies general or common grace. The major question is not one of terminology; nor am I interested in objecting to general revelation because some use it as proof of common grace: that latter reason would not be a valid one. One may not object to a term because it has been used wrongly. But I did show that Scripture, while also connecting revelation with grace, always speaks of revelation as God’s self-disclosure, as part of the salvation of the elect. This assertion, I said, brings up some problems, the chief of which is the question: Does not God make Himself known also to the world in general? This, and related questions, is the one which I address in this letter. Our starting point is Romans 1:18ff.

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First of all, let it be established beyond any doubt that indeed God does make himself known to all men through creation. (See Article 2 of the Belgic Confession.). God makes Himself known to His people in the creation, but, as Calvin puts it, we cannot see God in creation without the spectacles of Scripture. We may certainly call God’s manifestation of Himself in creation to His people “revelation,” but only in connection with Scripture and Scripture’s power to convert the sinner and instill faith.

That God makes Himself known to the wicked in creation is clearly taught in Romans 1:19-21 and Romans 2:14, 15. (Romans 1:18ff. is too long a section to be quoted here; you are urged to take out your Bibles and follow in them.) But notice, in Romans 1:19 the expression “hath shewed” is used instead of the term “hath revealed.” The term revelation is used by the apostle in verse 17 of the same chapter when he is speaking of the righteousness of God imputed to His people. Further, the same term is used in verse 18, but there it is used as the revelation of God’s wrath, and grace cannot be found in God’s wrath.

The entire passage in Romans 1 from verse 18 to the end of the chapter is an important one. It is important because it does speak of God making Himself known to all men. It is also important because Dr. A. Kuyper used this very passage as proof of common grace. Kuyper’s argument (as Bavinck’s) was, however, rather oblique. He appealed to the statement in Romans 1:24, 26, “God gave them up”, as teaching common grace because, until such a time as God did give them up to their own lusts, He restrained their sin; and this restraint of sin is evidence of grace. But we wait with our discussion of this until we examine that aspect of common grace.

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We ought to notice first of all, that the theme of verses 18–32 is most emphatically not: the revelation of God’s grace to all; it is rather: the wrath of God revealed from heaven. The revelation of God’s wrath from heaven is really the title of the entire section from verse 18 to the end of the chapter. That immediately rules out this passage as proof for common grace. Furthermore, the reason why God makes Himself known to all men is not to reveal His grace to all men, but “that they may be without excuse” (1:20). The word “that” in the AV introduces a purpose clause: “. . . in order that they may be without excuse”.).

One may ask: Why is the word “revealed” used in verse 18? This is a fair question. But the answer is obvious. This term used here also refers to God’s self-disclosure. God reveals Himself as a God of great wrath against the wicked. He is indeed a God of love and mercy, but He is the holy God and reveals Himself as holy by the terrible wrath He has against all “ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness” (vs. 18). The whole passage talks of wrath.

It is this matter of holding the truth in unrighteousness, which is the apostle’s next concern. In order for one to hold the truth in unrighteousness, he must, in some sense, possess the truth.

How does a wicked man possess that truth that he holds in unrighteousness?

Before I answer that question from what the apostle says, I must say something about the wicked and their sin of holding the truth in unrighteousness. The word translated “hold” in the AV can be translated here, “suppress.” The wicked suppress the truth. And their suppression of the truth is because they are unrighteous and ungodly. Not only is the sin of suppressing the truth itself an unrighteous and ungodly act, but the wicked suppress the truth because they are unrighteous and ungodly. If their suppression of the truth takes place by means of their unrighteousness and ungodliness, they are an unrighteous and ungodly people to begin with. The former term, “unrighteous” refers to their deliberate and willing violation of what God commands them to do. They are to honor and keep the law of God who is their Creator and Lord. But they deliberately disobey. “Ungodliness” is a denial of God and a denial of the fact that God is their Creator and has every right to command them to obey Him. They deny that, deny any claim God may have upon them, and deny God’s right to tell them what to do.

To suppress the truth is to know it, but to refuse to acknowledge it as truth, or even to allow it to enter one’s consciousness. We are all past-masters at this sort of thing. We know some truth that gives us great pain; some memory of some event; something so traumatic that has happened to us that we cannot bear to think about it. Because of the pain associated with it, we suppress it. That is, we refuse to allow ourselves to think about it. We drive it from our consciousness the moment it is present in our minds. We bury it somewhere where it will not intrude on our thinking.

We may suppress some obligation we have towards someone. We may owe a man $500.00, but we do not want to pay it for some reason. When it appears in our consciousness, we drive it away, because it bothers our conscience. We deliberately refuse to allow ourselves to be reminded of it, and when we are reminded of this debt by someone, we become angry and self-defensive.

So it is with God’s demands on man. He comes with the demands that men serve Him and obey His law, but man refuses. He will not even allow himself to think about it, for he is immediately troubled by an accusing conscience. And so he suppresses the thought and fights desperately to keep it from entering his thoughts. He knows that God is God and that God’s demands that men serve him are true. Everyone who has witnessed to an unbeliever has experienced that his word calling man to repent of sin and believe in Christ is rejected. The more often it is brought to a wicked person the more angry he becomes. Why is he so angry? Because he knows it is true, but refuses to forsake his sin and does not want to be reminded of his obligation towards God. Anger is the reaction of a guilty conscience. And it is well that we understand that we are the same way when confronted with sin in our lives.

But to suppress the truth of God the wicked must know that God is God and that He has every right to demand of men that they worship Him and obey Him. How do they know this? The apostle answers that question: “That which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shown it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead” (verses 19, 20).

Several points must be made in connection with these two verses. The first is that God is in Himself invisible. Man cannot see or know God apart from God’s own self-disclosure. The things of God are the invisible things of an invisible God. Man has no knowledge of God unless God makes Himself known to man in a way man can understand.

Second, Paul does not use here the word “to reveal,” for that would refer to revelation, always given in grace, as I said. The word used is quite different from the word “reveal.” It simply means “to make known to another.” Thus the apostle himself distinguishes here between revelation and a making known.

Third, God shows the things of Himself to man by means of the things that are made. God has showed the invisible things of Himself to the wicked so that the things of the invisible God are clearly seen and understood by means of the creation. Never is it possible for the wicked to plead ignorance. In the judgment day, they will not be able to say, “We did not serve you because we did not know you nor your demands on us.” God will say, “I clearly showed these things to you in my creation.” And they will have to admit that this is so.

Fourth, the apostle is even stronger. He says, “That which may be known of God is manifest in them.” That is strong language. It is true that the Greek word used here can also mean “among”. Then the meaning would be that this making Himself known is in the sphere where the heathen live. But the literal meaning of the preposition is “in,” and that is the translation I prefer. God personally sees to it that what He says concerning Himself is sealed clearly and unmistakably on their consciousness. This interpretation is confirmed by what Paul says in 2:15, where the Gentiles are said to “shew the work of the law written in their hearts.” To have the work of the law written in their hearts is the same as having God’s speech in creation impressed upon their consciousness.

No earthly teacher can ever do that. A teacher may make a math problem clear to her students and even use the blackboard to demonstrate it, but she cannot make the pupils pay attention, nor can she make the poor student, who never can figure out what math is all about, to see it and understand it. God puts the truth that He makes known into the consciousness of men so that they are fully aware of what He says and who He is. The sky filled with stars, the birds that greet the dawn with song, the rose bush arrayed in all its beauty, point not to themselves, as Augustine expressed it in his Confessions, but point beyond themselves and say, “Look not at me, but look to Him who made me.” This subjective Word of God that He seals upon the consciousness of every man is not the subjective bestowal of grace, as the text makes clear, but is instead the guarantee that the wicked indeed know God. And this work is undoubtedly accomplished by the Spirit of Christ who carries out all God’s purpose so that God alone, as the sovereign God, does all according to His counsel.

This inward sealing of the truth concerning God on the consciousness of man is sometimes called the semen religionis (seed of religion), or, sensus divinitatis (sense of divinity). It is a part of man’s created being. He knows he is dependent upon a power outside himself, that he is not autonomous, and that he cannot escape this complete dependence. He knows that he is a part of the creation and that the creation can be explained only in terms of God, the Creator who formed all things and who continues to uphold them. And, knowing this, he also knows that the Creator alone must be served and worshipped.

Fifth, this work of God in making Himself known is a work that is seen by all men. It is not a part of the gospel. It does not reveal Christ. It does not come with the promise of salvation to those who believe in Christ. It is God’s declaration that He alone is God. Thus Paul’s emphasis here is on those who, in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, live outside the sphere of gospel preaching. Every man, woman and child, in every jungle and forest, in every isle of the sea, in every land under heaven, knows that God is God and must be served. No man is without that knowledge.

Finally, it is the knowledge given in creation itself: “the invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.” So clearly are they seen that every man, from the creation itself, is confronted with the truth concerning God. God’s reason for this is “so that they are without excuse” (vs. 20). The wicked go to hell because they did not obey God when they clearly knew Him through His own creation. They suppress the truth in unrighteousness.


It is sometimes argued that Christ must be made known if men are to be saved (which is true), and that, therefore, God does not give all men an opportunity to believe in Christ, because He does not bring the gospel to all men. Because the work of making Himself known is limited to the creation, it is unjust of God to send those to hell who have never heard the gospel. Or, so it is argued, God’s revelation in creation itself is enough to be saved if only men would believe it and not suppress it. But this is exactly not Paul’s point. Paul is insisting that God is just when he comes in His wrath against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of the wicked even though they never heard the gospel and never heard of Christ, the One through whom alone is salvation. They know that God is God and that He must be worshipped and served.

You may argue that they cannot worship and serve God, because they have had no chance to hear the gospel, and because their total depravity makes it impossible for them to be saved apart from the Christ, whom they do not know. But we must not forget that they themselves are to blame for their inability to serve and worship Him. They sinned in Adam and their total depravity is the punishment of God upon the sinner for his guilt in Adam. This is also true of us. We stand under the righteous judgment of God for our sin and guilt in Adam just as all men stand under penalty of death for Adam’s sin. The truth of original sin, both original guilt and original pollution, is part of the foundation of the whole of the Reformed faith. Though it is rarely taught in today’s theologically insipid church, and although it is even flatly denied by modern evangelicalism, it is part and parcel of the faith once delivered to the saints. It is clearly taught in Romans 5:12-14.

The gospel makes God’s way of salvation clear and the command goes out to all that all who hear the gospel must believe in Christ. When they who hear the gospel in turn refuse, their judgment is far greater than those in heathendom. It is more tolerable in the day of judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah than for Chorazin and Capernaum, for Chorazin and Capernaum heard the gospel proclaimed Christ Himself. But the fact is that also the heathen who knew not the gospel are responsible before God for their sins, for they were created good and able in every way to serve God. But they lost their gifts to serve God through their cooperation with Satan when Adam agreed to disobey God and join forces with Satan in his wicked purpose. This is the reason for what Paul says in verse 1 of chapter 2: “Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest.”

Although I went to a Christian school in my grade-school days, chapel speakers would often urge on us the calling to go to the heathen with the gospel because the only reason the heathen did not believe was because they had not heard of Christ. We were told that, if we did not go and tell them of Christ, we were responsible for the millions that perish, millions who longed to be delivered, whose only fault was that no one ever told them about Christ, whose salvation was certain if only someone would go to bring them Christ. Paul puts all that nonsense aside in these verses.

The question remains, What do the heathen do when they suppress the gospel?

I shall address that question in the next letter, God willing.

With warmest regards,

Prof Hanko

Is "General Revelation" a matter of Common Grace? (21)

Dear Forum members,

I mentioned at the conclusion of my last letter that the time has come for us to turn to the question of general revelation. I intend to treat this subject at this point because we are discussing the view of common grace that teaches that God reveals His love for all men in creation (rain and sunshine, for example), what has sometimes been called “general revelation,” that is, God’s revelation of Himself in creation in distinction of God’s revelation of Himself in Scripture. And this general revelation, so called, is also common grace, for God gives evidence in the creation of His goodness, kindness, benevolence and grace. God speaks His Word of creation and providence in the world about us, expresses in it His greatness and glory and gives through it the knowledge of Himself. This knowledge of Himself is given to all men and is indicative of God’s favor and love to all men. Indeed, the very act of revealing Himself to all men is indicative of His favor. But along with that revelation of Himself to all is a certain subjective grace that all men have by the power of which all men come to know God’s love for them and kindness to them.

Herman Bavinck most clearly identifies common grace with general revelation. In his book, Our Reasonable Faith (tr. by Henry Zylstra from the Dutch work Magnalia Dei; The Wonderful Works of God; (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House,1977). In discussing the differences between general revelation and special revelation, he writes: “The first (general revelation, HH) is directed to all men and, by means of common grace, serves to restrain the eruption of sin . . .” (37). “It is common grace (in general revelation, HH) which makes special grace possible, prepares the way for it, and later supports it; and special grace, in its turn, leads common grace up to its own level and puts it into its service.” (38).

William Masselink wrote a book under the title, General Revelation and Common Grace in which he argues that God’s revelation of Himself in creation and history constitutes in itself the common grace of God. (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977). That is, the very fact that God reveals Himself to all men is, in itself, grace.

In a decision concerning the legitimacy of teaching evolutionism in Calvin College, it was argued that general revelation, because it is God’s common grace, has to be taken into account in determining the origins of the creation and the age of the earth. The argument is that God’s common grace through general revelation gives man the necessary ability to discover in creation God’s truth – also concerning the age of the earth. It is strange though that although Scripture teaches creation in seven days of twenty-four hours by the mighty Word of God, science, which supposedly teaches an old earth of billions of years of age and creation by long processes of natural selection and the survival of the fittest, is to be preferred over Scripture, and Scripture’s teachings considered in the light of science, rather than science in the light of Scripture. This is the theistic evolutionist’s position in spite of the fact that Scripture has as its Author, God, while science has as its authors, unbelieving scientists. That idea certainly ascribes to common grace a formidable power.

Prof. Ralph Janssen, professor in Old Testament studies in Calvin Theological Seminary in the early 20th century till his deposition in 1922, held to the idea that the miracles of Scripture had to be explained in scientific terms because of common grace. For example, the water from the rock when Moses struck it was not due to a miracle, but was due to a blow of Moses’ rod on a thin layer of rock, which broke the rock and released the water already in it (Num. 20:7-11). He also taught that the monotheism of Israel’s religion was gained in a certain measure by the adoption of the religions of surrounding nations. All this was possible because of the common grace given in general revelation, for, because all the heathen possessed common grace, they were able to discover and hold to certain truths concerning creation and God. And because scientists possessed common grace, they are able to understand general revelation and formulate certain scientific truths into which Scripture’s miracles had to be fitted and in the light of which they had to be explained. (For a more detailed study of this subject see my Masters Thesis, A Study of the Relation Between the Views of Prof. R. Jansen and Common Grace, available from the Protestant Reformed Theological School in Grand Rapids, Michigan.)

But we cannot be side-tracked by attempts to destroy God’s Word. We must move on to this question of “general revelation” and face the question whether so-called “general revelation” is common grace.

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Before I examine this whole idea in detail, I have a caveat that is, it seems to me, important. The fact is, that for years I have been unhappy with the whole concept of general revelation. General revelation is usually interpreted to mean that, apart from Scripture, God reveals Himself through creation; and this revelation of God in creation is given to all men. This is why this revelation in creation is called “general.” I have no problem with the idea that creation itself makes God known; my problem is with the word “revelation” as it stands connected to “general” and is applied to creation. It seems inevitable that such a conception leads also to a grace common to all those to whom God “reveals” Himself, for Scripture connects revelation with grace. I do not want to quibble about mere terms, but it is my conviction that we ought to abandon the term “general revelation” for the term itself implies something contrary to Scripture and has been used as proof of God’s universal love and favor.

I have examined the many texts in Scripture where the term “revelation” is used in the sense of God’s self-disclosure and I have been unable to find a single text that speaks of revelation as God’s self-disclosure to all men. In the sense of God’s revelation of Himself, the term is used strictly as revelation to the elect. Scripture’s use of the term “revelation” limits God’s revelation to His people. All Scripture follows the words of our Lord, when, after pronouncing terrible woes upon Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum for their unbelief, He prays: “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him” (Matt. 11:25 –27; the emphasis is mine).

The same idea of revelation is underscored in Jesus’ explanation of the reason why He teaches in parables. I refer to Matthew 13:11-16. Jesus’ answer to His disciples’ query (why does Jesus teach in parables?) is first of all, that to them (that is, the disciples; and the disciples in distinction from all others) is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. This knowledge is not, Jesus says, given to others, but is hidden from them (vs. 11). And so Jesus goes on to explain that His reason for teaching in parables is that the sovereign purpose of God might be realized in the salvation of the church and in the damnation of unbelieving Israel. He quotes Isaiah 6:9, 10 in support of His contention.

Many want to interpret these words of Jesus that parables are intentionally the method of instruction that Jesus chose because parables are riddles, enigmas, puzzles calculated to obscure. Quite the opposite is the case. Parables make clear, explain things, and teach concerning the invisible truths of the kingdom of heaven by means of visible and easily understood realities in this visible creation. Thus, everyone who hears them, knows exactly what Jesus means and what truths He is making clear. But that is not yet revelation, because God’s purpose is that hearing many shall indeed hear, but not understand; and seeing they shall surely see, but shall not perceive. That they hear and see, but do not understand or perceive is due to the fact that the heart of the Jews was grown fat, and their ears dull of hearing, and their eyes closed so that they could not see (vss. 14, 15).

But, says our Lord to the disciples: “Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear” (vs. 16). Obviously the meaning of the Lord is that it is given to the disciples both to see and to hear (vs. 11). That is, revelation of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven is to the disciples alone, because revelation includes the spiritual ability to see that revelation. Revelation includes the subjective and gracious work of God to enable the spiritually blind to see and the spiritually deaf to hear. Revelation is sovereign and particular. Revelation is part of the work of salvation. Revelation is never, never to the wicked.

I can understand why revelation is linked to common grace in the thinking of the defenders of common grace. Even they realize that revelation involves grace, and so, if revelation is general to all men, grace is general to all men. And so, we have “general revelation” and common grace. But the Scriptures do not teach this.

That revelation is only for the elect is easily illustrated. The word “revelation” means “to uncover, to expose, to unveil.” It brings to mind the public unveiling of a statue of some famous person in some park. A crowd is assembled, and, after appropriate speeches are finished, the time for unveiling comes and the drape covering the statue is removed. But now supposing that all the people assembled are blind and deaf -- is there any revelation? No one present can see a thing or hear a word. What revelation takes place? None.

The sinner is spiritually blind and deaf. He cannot see nor hear because he has no eyes and ears attuned to heavenly things. He is dead in trespasses and sins. The uncovering or unveiling of God when He speaks of Himself and all His mighty works cannot be to the unbeliever whose heart is fat, whose ears are dull and whose eyes are closed. Revelation is indeed grace. It is a grace that opens eyes and ears and instills faith. But the Lord God must be thanked that this same revelation is hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed to babes, for this is the Father’s good pleasure.

Our conclusion is, therefore, that revelation is part of the work of salvation; part of God’s undeserving gift to His people, part of the overflowing bounty of grace, and it is very particular.

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That teaching of Scripture raises, however, some questions. The first question is: Is it not true that God does make Himself known to the wicked? Another question, closely related to this is: Why does Jesus nevertheless, speak of the wicked as “seeing,” even if they do not see, and “hearing” even though they do not hear? And, thirdly, is it not true that the wicked also know God? Does not Romans 1 teach exactly that?

In connection with these questions, one must recall that I talked in an earlier letter about the fact that not only saving grace, but also common grace, is not simply an objective attitude of God towards men, but is also a subjective infusion of spiritual power modifying and mitigating the severity of sin in the sinner. Applied now to this idea of revelation, does not general revelation, if it is common grace, bestow the spiritual ability to know God in the truest sense of the word? It certainly has to mean that, and the defenders of common grace and general revelation are ready (and even eager, one might suppose) to teach this.

But these questions, and especially an analysis of the teaching of Romans 1:18ff. are going to take more time than we have left in this letter.

With warmest regards,
Prof. Hanko

God is Kind to the Unthankful and to the Evil (20)

Dear forum members,

Before we pursue further the discussion of the proof texts used to prove an attitude of favor and love that God shows to all, I must deal briefly with a text that one of the readers of the forum sent in. He says that it is usually quoted as proof for a gracious and well-meant gospel offer, but would like to have a brief explanation. The text is Revelation 22:17: “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”

I am aware of the fact that this text, and others like it, have been used to prove from Scripture a well-meant and gracious gospel offer in which God expresses His desire to save all men. But such an interpretation is incorrect. Presumably, the defenders of this position assume that, though this call of the gospel comes only to those that hear or are thirsty or will to come, such characteristics belong to all men. All men hear; all men thirst (for the coming of Christ), all men desire to come.

But this is an evident impossibility on the face of it. Such a view is based on the Arminian doctrine of free-willism, and cannot be found in Scripture. I am just now reading a book by Robert A. Peterson with the title, “Election and Free Will” in which the author traces the history of free-willism from the early church fathers till today and speaks of it as the dividing line between Arminianism and Calvinism. (P & R Publishing, 2007.)

Briefly, the meaning of the text is quite different. In the first part of the text John lays down the general truth that the “bride” of Christ, that is, His church, prays, by the power of the Spirit for Christ’s return. The words “The Spirit and the bride say, Come,” mean, by a Greek hendiadys, “The Spirit in the hearts of the bride says, Come.” He then turns to an admonition directed to the bride to make this prayer earnest and one’s own. These members of the church are described by their spiritual names. They hear what the book of Revelation says about the coming of Christ; they thirst for that coming, for it means their full salvation, and the waters of life shall be their’s to drink forever and ever to quench their thirst.

But even the saints need this admonition, for they are yet in the world, sinful and not always earnestly and eagerly longing for Christ’s return. They are too trapped in their pre-occupation with earthly things to give much thought to Christ’s coming. So the admonition directed to the saints is urgent.

Let us be aware of the fact that Scripture does call all men who hear the gospel to faith and repentance. Proverbs 8:1ff and Matthew 22:14. This command of God is not an expression of His loving desire to save all, but simply a sharp and earnest command. But there are also texts directed only to those who are God’s elect and who know already the work of the Spirit and the grace of God in their hearts. They are addressed by their spiritual names and cannot refer to all men. Such passages as Rev. 22:15, Isaiah 55:1 and Matthew 11:28 are clear instances of such passages. But in neither case does such a passage speak of God’s gracious and loving desire to save all who hear the gospel.

One other item demands our attention before we go on,. In an earlier installment I said, “God does not love those who love Him.” Some of our forum members misunderstood what I was saying, wrote, “God does love those who love Him.” I apologize for my lack of clarity and hope this note clarifies the point. What I meant to say, and thought I had said in the context was, “God does not love His people because they love Him.” His love is first, creative, powerful, salvation itself. God’s love for us creates our love for God.

I hope this clears up the matter.

* * * *

We will now consider the Biblical proof that is used to support the idea of God’s general attitude of favor and love that He shows to all men. No confessional proof was offered in support of this point of common grace, but a few Bible verses were quoted in support of it. In the last installment, I considered Matthew 5:44, 45. In this installment I consider the second proof text, Luke 6:35, 36: “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”

This passage in Luke is nearly parallel with the passage in Matthew 5 that we considered last time. The context also is very much the same. The Sermon on the Mount is recorded in Matthew 5-7, but here, though spoken on a different occasion, the subject is the same. The text is also very close to being the same, the only difference being that Jesus here speaks of God’s kindness to the unthankful and evil, while in Matthew 5, Jesus speaks of the rain and sunshine God sends to the just and the unjust. Luke 6 therefore makes explicit what is implicit in Matthew 5: the reference to the unthankful and evil is, therefore, a reference to the unthankful and evil elect. Election is not based on works, but on the free and sovereign choice of God. Those who are eternally chosen are not chosen because of any good they did, nor because something was found in them that made them suitable to be counted among the elect. They were as evil as any in the world. They were as ungrateful for God’s good gifts as anyone elsewhere. They were as deserving of everlasting condemnation as those who were not chosen. But they are in any case, citizens of the kingdom of heaven, and Jesus is giving them the principles by which the citizens of the kingdom live here in the world.

The elect who are the objects of God’s mercy know with total certainty that they were not chosen because they were in any way better than those not chosen. The awesome character of election and its sovereign work of God is the reason for the humility of God’s people. How can it be any different? It is not at all strange, therefore, that these people are admonished to be merciful to others. They are eager to love their enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again. They cannot help but be themselves kind unto the unthankful and evil, for this is the way God dealt with them.

There is no reason at all in the text to argue, as those who teach common grace argue, that God is merciful to all men. After all, Jesus is speaking here to His own disciples (verse 20) and is describing the characteristics and calling of those who belong to the kingdom of heaven. Citizens of the kingdom of heaven are saved by grace; they are now to be gracious to those with whom they come into contact. In this way they manifest to others the grace God has shown to them. What could be more obvious?

To argue that because within the sphere of the kingdom of heaven, God is kind to unthankful and evil people can never be reason why we conclude that God is gracious to all men. One ought to re-read Psalm 73 and Proverbs 3:33 if he has any problem with this explanation.

* * * *

The last text that is quoted is Acts 14:16, 17: “Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”

This is an interesting text that requires considerable explanation, though not because it is difficult to refute those who want to thrust common grace on the text. Whatever the text may mean, it certainly does not say anything about a general attitude of favor and grace that God has towards all men. That seems to be clear on the very surface.

The context is clear enough. In his first missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas came to Lystra. During the course of Paul’s preaching in this city of Asia Minor, Paul healed a lame man. This startled the citizens of this city and they immediately considered Paul and Barnabas to be two of the gods that they worshipped and served. Under this erroneous conclusion, they prepared to make sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas. Paul was determined to prevent them from committing such a terrible sin. The passage is part of Paul’s efforts to stop them from their horrible idolatry.

Even considering the text in this context and attempting to find common grace in this text, one would, it seems to me, immediately wonder why in the world Paul used the doctrine of common grace to prevent the heathen idolaters from worshipping him. But, apart from that, the text says nothing at all about an attitude of God’s favor and grace towards all men, but merely speaks, as I have emphasized more than once, that God gives good gifts to men. His gifts are always good and never evil. He is Himself a good God, infinitely good in His eternal perfections. He cannot give anything but good gifts.

You say, Yes, but God also sends floods, tornados, famine and earthquakes. Is He good when He sends these disasters? Yes, indeed, He is good also when He sends catastrophes, for in His infinite holiness and perfect hatred of sin He sends judgments on the wicked in order that His goodness may be vindicated and His hatred of sin revealed. And surely part of the sin that He hates is the dreadful sin that man commits of despising God’s good gifts and using them to oppose God.

And, we may mention in passing that when God sends catastrophes upon His people, that also is good, for God uses all the sufferings of this present time to sanctify His people and prepare them for glory.

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But the text in Acts 14 goes further. It gives a reason why God gives good gifts to men. That reason is not that God loves them and is kindly disposed towards them. The reason is that God does not leave Himself without witness. In the good gifts that He gives, God testifies of Himself. He even, Paul says, did this in the old dispensation when Christ had not yet come and when the gospel was not sent into the nations. Even in those days when the gospel was proclaimed only in Israel, the heathen who never knew or heard the gospel, nevertheless, were given a strong and irrefutable witness of God. The Jebusites, Moabites, Philistines, Ammonites and all the other heathen nations of the earth received that witness from God through the good gifts that God gave to them.

Paul explains this further in Romans 1:18ff, and this point is sufficiently important to devote some time to it, but let it be established now that when God gave good gifts to men, He gave them to show all men that He alone is God, that He alone is good, and that He alone must be served and worshipped.

Paul appeals to that truth in Lystra, because he underscores the fact that the wicked from the beginning of time and including the idolaters in Lystra knew and know that God alone must be worshipped and served. The people in Lystra, therefore, must not offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas, but to God alone.

This truth brings us to a discussion of Romans 1 and the truth of what is sometimes called general revelation. But all this must wait.

With warm regards to all,

Prof Hanko

Scriptural "proof" for Common Grace: Matthew 5:44-45 (19)

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Dear forum members:
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I have been at some pains to deal with the arguments raised in defense of the idea that God has an attitude of favor towards all men, and not only towards the elect. I also gave a positive statement concerning the truth of this matter, namely that God’s favor and love are always towards His people and are rooted in sovereign election; it is not possible to answer the questions posed by common grace without taking into account both election and reprobation.
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Although I am reserving our discussion of other aspects of common grace for future articles, I must remind our readers that the question of God’s general attitude of favor and love towards all men underlies all aspects of common grace: the restraint of sin, the good that the unregenerate do, and the free and well-meant offer of the gospel. All three are based on the idea that God is favorable towards all men. The point we are now discussing is crucial and fundamental to all aspects of common grace.
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Further, I must remind you all that what I said at the beginning of these letters is an important point to bear in mind. God does not only take an objective attitude of favor towards all men and leave it go at that so that most, if not all, the objects of common grace do not even know that God loves them; rather, God’s attitude of favor includes the actual bestowal of grace upon the object of that favor. God’s “attitude” is not a mere thought in His mind; it is the living will of the living God. He shows His favor towards all, and makes certain that these objects of His favor know that God loves them. He gives them His grace in their hearts to enable them to be what apart from His grace they cannot be and to do that which apart from His grace they cannot do. They know His love whether they accept this love or not.
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Bearing these two thoughts in mind, we can proceed with our discussion.
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It is now time to examine the Biblical proof given by defenders of common grace for God’s attitude of favor towards all men.
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The first point of common grace adopted by the synod of the Christian Reformed Church in 1924 offered the following Biblical proof: Psalm 145:9, Matthew 5:44, 45, Luke 6:35, 36, Acts 14:16, 17. We shall discuss these texts one by one. If anyone among our forum members had other texts to consider, I would be more than willing to consider them as well.
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Now, there is not much here to which we have to pay attention. I have already discussed Psalm 145:9, and need not deal with that text again. I pointed out that the reference in this Psalm is not to men but to God’s creation. God is good to His creation, for it is His; Christ died for it, and it shall be redeemed.
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Further, Matthew 5:44, 45, Luke 6:35, 36 and Acts 14:16, 17 are all very similar, and the correct interpretation of one will give us the correct interpretation of the others.
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Even the two brochures written almost immediately after the adoption of the three points by the Christian Reformed Church contain no additional Scriptural proof for the point we are discussing. The two brochures are: Louis Berkhof, De Drie Punten in alle Deelen Gereformeerd (The Three Points, in all Parts Reformed) (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1925) and H. J. Kuyper, The Three Points of Common Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1925).
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Now this is in itself rather significant. It would seem to me that in a official doctrinal statement made by the highest ecclesiastical body of a church and introducing into the church’s body of faith a doctrine that from the viewpoint of the Reformed creeds and the history of the Reformed churches has at best only dubious historical support (although the first point of common grace claims that this view was held by all theologians in “the most flourishing period of Reformed theology,”)—that ecclesiastical body would give an abundance of Scriptural proof, and even, one would hope, an explanation of the texts referred to as proof. But such is not the case. The need for careful exegesis of Scripture is the more pressing when faithful ministers of the gospel are stripped of their office because they refuse to sign the doctrinal statement at issue. Nevertheless, we ought to look at the proof given.
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I must, therefore, turn to Matthew 5:44, 45. In general, there is no question about it that this is a key passage in the defense of God’s attitude of grace and love towards all men. Every defender of common grace that I have read or listened to has quoted this text as decisive in the debate. And all defenders of common grace assure us that this passage ought to mark the end of all debate.
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The text itself reads: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and unjust.”
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The argument as I understand it goes like this. God sends rain on the just and on the unjust. The common rain that God sends is proof of His favor, love, kindness, etc. towards the unregenerate. Rain is God’s common grace.
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Sometimes the argument is turned around, in the interests of showing that all who receive rain actually do receive favor. The argument goes like this: We are called to do good to the just and to the unjust. For us that doing good to the just and unjust includes all men without any distinction, or, at least, includes elect and reprobate alike, for we are unable to distinguish between them. Because we are imitating God as His children, in doing good to all, God also does good to all.
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We may not, however, argue from our calling to love our neighbor as ourselves to God’s attitude of favor towards all men. We are creatures, living here in the world, in the world though not of the world. God is God, sovereign over all who does all His good pleasure. Known unto God are all His works from the beginning. We do not know who are God’s elect and who are reprobate. But God does know, for He determines it all. We ought to keep this in mind.
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An important question that arises from the text is: Whom does Jesus mean by “the just and unjust” upon whom God sends rain? Does Jesus mean: good men in this world and bad men in this world? That is, men who deserve rain and sunshine and men who do not? The answer, very obviously, is: The text cannot mean that, for there are no just people in the world, for “there is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom 3:10).
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Does it then mean to distinguish between those who are righteous because the perfect satisfaction for sin earned on the cross has been imputed to them, and those who are still in their sins and not righteous in Christ? That is, is the distinction between just and unjust a distinction between elect and reprobate? It would seem that the latter would have to be the meaning. But then the text means only, as we have repeatedly observed, that God manifests that He is a good God by giving good things to men, something no one denies. The question still remains: What is God’s attitude and purpose behind these good gifts? And then Psalm 73 and Proverbs 3:33 give us the answer.
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But the whole idea that God loves the reprobate is an imposition on the text of man’s own devising.
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A positive explanation of the text would, I think, be helpful.
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Actually, I dealt with some of the issues in this verse in my last letters and I ask the reader to consult what I wrote there. There is some repetition here, therefore, but perhaps the points are worth repeating.
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Before I take our journey through this text, it is necessary to put the text into its context. In the broader context Scripture gives us Jesus’ words in His Sermon on the Mount. This sermon is spoken to the disciples and, more broadly, to all citizens of the kingdom of heaven. The Sermon on the Mount has frequently and rightly been called, “The Constitution of the Kingdom of Heaven.” After describing the characteristics of the citizens of the kingdom in the Beatitudes, the Lord lays down fundamental principles that govern the lives of these citizens while they are still in this world. Note this: Jesus is laying down principles of conduct to be observed by those who are citizens of the kingdom.
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In the section of which verses 44, 45 are a part, beginning with verse 21, Jesus is explaining how He did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. And in connection with His calling and work to fulfill the law, He condemns the keeping of the law as it was explained by the scribes and Pharisees. They saw the law only as an external code of conduct and paid no attention to the spiritual demands of the law: Love God, and love thy neighbor. Even to the command, Love thy neighbor, the Pharisees had added the command, Hate thy enemy (verse 43). This interpretation was indeed what the Pharisees taught, for in verses 46 and 47 the Lord adds, “For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans the same?”
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The evil interpretation of the law by the Pharisees was basically a self-centered conceit: I will be nice only to those who are nice to me . . . .
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In other words, the command of God to love our neighbors as ourselves had been corrupted and abused by the self-righteous Pharisees and scribes. They had interpreted “neighbor” as referring to their brethren, and, even more narrowly, to those who loved them. The Lord warns the citizens of the kingdom not to do as the Pharisees, for that is not the law of God.
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But the Pharisees forgot that the command to love our neighbor is rooted in and flows from the command to love God. We cannot love our neighbor without loving God. And, indeed, our love for our neighbor is a manifestation of our love for God. Furthermore, the love the citizens of the kingdom who love God must show to others is a manifestation of the fact that they are loved by God (I John 4:19). The Pharisees, when they interpreted the command, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” and interpreted it to mean that we are to love those who love us, immediately had to face the question: Does God love those who love Him? What a foolish question to ask. The answer obviously is, He does not! Jesus’ answer demonstrates that God loves those who hate Him, though they be elect.
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The term “neighbor” in the law of God is broader by far than our brethren and those who love us. That it has a broader connotation is evident from the parable of “The Good Samaritan” (Luke 10:25-37). In this parable Jesus explains that we are neighbors to anyone whom we meet or walk with on our life’s pathway, who is in need of our help. That means that our neighbors are not only those who unexpectedly cross our pathway and need our help, but also those with whom we walk on life’s pathway every moment of our lives, but who need our help: our wives or husbands, our children, out fellow saints . . . . Quite frankly, I have a great deal of difficulty accepting the hypocritically pious prating of the ministers who are continuously telling us to love our neighbor, but who divorce their own wives and marry others. Let them first love their neighbor nearest to them, their wives and their children.
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For all that, we are also called to love the neighbor who is quite obviously an unbeliever. That is, we are called to love our neighbor without discriminating between those who love us and those who persecute us. We are not to love those only who love us. God does not love those who love Him. God does not love those who make themselves worthy of His love. He loves us, the worst of sinners. If we are children of our Father, therefore, we love those who do not love us. But those whom God loves are those wicked and undeserving people who are nevertheless those for whom Christ died.
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The point of comparison between God’s love and our love is: God loves unworthy sinners (though they are the elect whom God knows) and we are to love unworthy sinners (though we do not know elect from reprobate.) In doing so we imitate our Father in heaven.
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We may very well ask the question: Why does God want us to love our neighbor and not only our brethren? The very obvious answer to that question is: We do not know who are our brethren (or will become our brethren), and who are not. That is why the Pharisees interpreted the command to love our neighbor as referring to those who love them. If, said the Pharisees, a person loves us, he must be one of our brethren and we ought to love him.
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This was very perverse and wicked. We do not even know with absolute certainty who among our brethren are truly people of God; much less do we know of those outside the circle of our brethren who are true people of God. Luther was right when he said that there would be many in heaven who surprised him by their presence, and there would be many he thought to meet in heaven who were not there. Hypocrites are to be found in the church and God’s people are to be found outside the circle of “brethren”, though they may as yet be unconverted. God knows who are His own; we do not know with absolute certainty. Nor need we know. It is enough for us to live in fellowship with those who manifest themselves as faithful servants of Christ, with whom we live in our homes and in the communion of the saints. Going back all the way to Calvin and our Reformed fathers after him and following them, we must exercise towards those who profess to be believers “the judgment of charity,” or “the judgment of love.”
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But God is pleased to save His church from the world of unbelief. He is pleased to save His church by the preaching of the gospel. The effect of the preaching of the gospel is that God’s people are His witnesses in the world of sin; and the witness of God’s people is itself the power of the preaching within them. God uses the witness of Christians to bring His people outside the church into the fellowship of the saints and under the preaching. This is God’s reason for the command to love our neighbor.
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As Jesus makes clear, our neighbor is anyone who comes in our pathway: our wives or husbands, our children, our fellow saints, the man next to us in the shop, the man who knocks on our door to ask for food, the man who threatens us with harm, the man who persecutes us – these and all the rest who, if only fleetingly, enter our lives. God brings them there. God has His purpose in bringing them there. That purpose is to hear our witness of what God has done for us. We do good to those on our pathway whom God has put there.
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We who are husbands surely seek the salvation of our wives. We do all we can to help them fulfill their own calling in the home and in the church. We surely seek the salvation of our children, for we teach them the ways of God’s covenant and insist that they walk in those ways. We surely seek the salvation of our fellow saints, for we earnestly desire to go to heaven with them.
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The command to love our neighbor is broader than showing love to our acquaintances. We are to love those whose pathway crosses our pathway and who, like the wounded Samaritan, block our path so that we have to go around them if we are to ignore them. God put him on our pathway and did so for a good purpose.
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Our neighbor is emphatically someone on our pathway. To love my neighbor who lives in Zaire is very easy. Even if occasionally I have to write out a check because famine is stalking Africa; to love these neighbors is the easiest thing in the world. But to love the unkempt and stinking man who knocks on my door for some food when I am in a rush to meet an appointment with a parishioner who has just lost a loved one – that is something more difficult.
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We must love the neighbor. Love is not sentimental and syrupy do-goodism. Paul defines love as being the bond of perfection (Col. 3:14). Paul means that love binds two people together in a friendship that is characterized by holiness. So it is within the church. When that love is to be extended to our neighbor, it means that we earnestly desire the salvation of our neighbor, that he may, through faith in Christ, be perfect also; and that, saved by God’s grace, he may be one with whom we live in the communion of the saints. Love always seeks the salvation even of those that hate and curse us, despitefully use us and persecute us, for they may very well be brought to faith in Christ by our love for them.
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Love is not, therefore, having fellowship with them in their sins, going to parties and sporting events with them, visiting them in their homes for amiable chats in front of the fireplace, or having a beer with them at the local pub. To seek their salvation is to reprove their sins, call them to repentance and faith in Christ, and point them to the way of salvation. When God shows mercy to us, He shows mercy to the unthankful and evil. We, moved deeply by such a mercy, do likewise.
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To love them is therefore to do good to them and to pray for them, for this is what the Lord enjoins. Our concern for their salvation must be earnest, heart-felt and rooted in a genuine desire to see them one with us. But it is always a reflection in our lives of God’s love for us, undeserving sinners. God does not love those who do good to Him, who deserve His love. He loves the unthankful and evil But He loves them in Christ, seeks their salvation by sending His own Son into the world to suffer and die, and does all that is necessary to bring them to heaven.
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As I said, witnessing has the same power as preaching. Preaching brings to faith in Christ; so does witnessing. Preaching is directed to far more people than the elect; so is witnessing. Preaching condemns sin and calls to faith in Christ; so does witnessing. Preaching is a two-edged sword that hardens as well as saves; so is witnessing. Witnessing is a sort of echo or reverberation of the preaching – preaching that we have heard and by which we have a faith that echoes in our witnessing. The two belong together. God uses promiscuous preaching to save His elect; so also He uses witnessing to bring His elect to the preaching of the gospel, to the fellowship of the church and to faith in Christ. We must not be as the Pharisees; we must be children of our Father in heaven.
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Considering these things, we can understand the words: “That ye may be children of your Father which is in heaven, for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” The point Jesus is making is that we must do to others what God has done to us. This is always a theme in Scripture, as Jesus makes clear in the parable of the two debtors (Matt. 18:21-35). God loves us and has shown His love for us by giving us Christ and salvation in Him. We are undeserving sinners who have no claim at all on God’s mercy. We receive what we do not deserve. If we fail to show this great blessing to our neighbor, we are thankless and unappreciative, not worthy of the blessings we are given. If we are aware of the amazing wonder of our salvation and if we have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, then we will also be inwardly compelled by the power of that love to love our neighbor as ourselves. That is Jesus’ point in this passage.
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If you say that Jesus points us to the fact that God sends His rain and sunshine on men indiscriminately, you are, of course, correct. The point of the terms “just and unjust” is precisely to demonstrate that God’s love does not depend on the worthiness of the object. But, further, God always gives only good gifts. I have pointed out in an earlier installment that God gives good gifts, for He is good in Himself. The good gifts He gives show beyond question the wickedness of the world, for they despise God’s good gifts and use them in the service of Satan. In this way God Himself demonstrates that His judgment on the wicked is a judgment they deserve. In His good gifts to the reprobate, God sets them on slippery places where they slide rapidly into everlasting destruction (Psalm 73:18, 19). Behind this just judgment stands the eternal and unchangeable decree of sovereign predestination.
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But God’s goodness is a manifestation of His grace to those whom He has chosen in Christ and for whom Christ died. We are unthankful and evil and deserve nothing. But God knows us as His own and knows all who are His own. He saves us sovereignly. We do not know who are elect and who are not. We are called to be witnesses of what God has done for us in the hope that God will do the same to those to whom we witness. And God will do what He has eternally planned to do, but in such a way that our witnessing always accomplishes His purpose whether that means to save or to harden. Or, to put it a little differently, God who knows His own in this world, gives good gifts to them for their salvation; but He also gives good gifts so that the wicked may be without excuse and God’s purpose in reprobation accomplished. We do not know who are elect and who are reprobate, but our manifestations of love have the same affect: they save (by God’s grace) the elect and harden and condemn the wicked.
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You say, But God gives rain and sunshine to the just and unjust. That is, of course, true. But it is a false assumption to interpret giving rain to just and unjust as tokens of God’s love for the wicked. He gives rain and sunshine to the unjust reprobate for their condemnation, and to the just elect for their salvation. So we, the objects of such undeserved favor, must love our enemies and do good to them that hate us. That is, we must seek their salvation, not knowing whom God will be pleased to save through our goodness. God will use that very love for our neighbor to harden and condemn the wicked, but also to save those whom He has chosen to everlasting life.
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One correspondent asks whether it is an accurate statement of God’s attitude towards the reprobate to say, “The good gifts of providence that he gives to them (the wicked, HH) are meant as a testimony to them that he is a good God, full of kindness and love, and therefore one worthy to be worshipped and before whom they should repent were they in their right mind, and that if they were to do so they would experience his loving fellowship as sweet.” My response to that summary is a hearty “Amen.”
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This is Biblical and what we must believe.
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With warmest regards,
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Prof. Hanko

Election and Reprobation Denied (19d)

Dear Forum members,
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In the past letters I have sent, I have been at some pains to demonstrate from Scripture that the common grace of a universal benevolence and love of God is contrary to the Word of God and the teaching of the Reformed and Presbyterian Confessions. Over against this position, I have also attempted to present a positive Biblical and confessional statement concerning the truth of sovereign and particular grace.
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In doing this latter, I have, more than once, mentioned that the Biblical teaching is that God’s sovereign and particular grace is rooted in the truth of sovereign and eternal predestination, both election and reprobation . This teaching is found in Scripture and in our Confessions.
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Without any doubt, this same doctrine of sovereign and eternal predestination, both election and reprobation, was taught by the Reformers, including both Martin Luther and John Calvin. Those who hold to double predestination today stand firmly in the tradition of the Reformation and of the Reformed and Presbyterians Confessions.
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To maintain double predestination is to close the door to any form of common grace, particularly to the idea that God’s love, kindness and benevolence are shown to all men. But it works the other way around as well. If one is committed to common grace, in whatever form it takes, sovereign and double predestination falls by the wayside.
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This was evident in a recent reprint of Arthur Pink’s influential book, The Sovereignty of God. In this book, Arthur Pink defended the Biblical doctrines of both election and reprobation. Yet, the Banner of Truth, in republishing the book, deleted all references to reprobation, without any notice in the book of having omitted these sections, without a credible apology for doing so, and without permission from the author, dead at the time the reprint was made.
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I recently received a letter from one who read my forum articles in which the correspondent claimed to believe in election, (because it was, after all, found in Scripture) but who insisted that we could know nothing about it and that it ought not to be a part of the preaching. As far as we know, he said, God loves all men and presumably, Christ died for all men. To ignore this basic doctrine of Scripture is to deny it.
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A correspondent and member of the Forum called my attention to the fact that a recent article in The Banner, the official periodical of the Christian Reformed Church, repudiated both reprobation and election. The Christian Reformed Church (CRC) is the mother Church of the Protestant Reformed Churches, and the two denominations have existed separately since the CRC expelled three ministers for repudiating the doctrine of common grace.
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Where has an adoption of common grace led the CRC? It has led the CRC down the road of increasing apostasy although our interest in this article is in what it says about predestination.
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The article to which I refer (Alvin Hoksbergen, The New Calvinism: Calvinism is on the Rise – but Other Faith Traditions are Getting all the Credit [The Banner, August, 2009], pp. 38, 39. The article can be read on www.thebanner.org.) is discussing a feature article that originally appeared in Time magazine entitled “10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now,” published in the March 22, 2009 issue of Time magazine. Among these “10 Ideas” Neo-Calvinism was included.
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The article was, in its description of Calvinism, a caricature of it, understandably if Time was speaking, not of Calvinism, but of Neo-Calvinism. Time’s description of this Neo-Calvinism bore no resemblance to Calvin’s teachings; this kind of Calvinism was indeed “Neo,” and could rightly be called “No-Calvinism.”
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One would think that a minister in a denomination that professes to be Calvinistic would come to the defense of Calvinism as it has been taught in the Reformed and Presbyterian traditions. But such is not the case. Rather, the author is puzzled that neither the Reformed Church of America (RCA) nor the CRC was included in the lists of churches who are promoting the new Calvinism. The author points out various areas in which the CRC has been active and should have received proper credit: The CRC is active in social work and the CRC properly recognizes the authority of God’s Word in creation (presumably a reference to the CRC’s approval of evolutionism). These certainly, the author opines, are credentials that admit the denomination into the ranks of Neo-Calvinists. But these credentials were obviously ignored by Time.
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Finally, the author presumably finds the real reason why the CRC has been overlooked. It has an albatross hanging about its neck, which has been hanging there for some time: “I wonder why the RCA and the CRC traditions aren’t mentioned. Whatever the reason, now might be the time for us to take another look at who we are and how we might be included among other Calvinists who make a noted difference in today’s world” (38). He then suggests that the reason for the exclusion of the CRC from Time’s list is: “Our problem with election. An area that we in the CRC tradition must address if we are to be part of the ‘new Calvinism’ is the perception that there is an albatross that hangs around our neck. I am referring to the perception that we believe God predestinates some people to everlasting hell, while others are granted eternal life in glory” (39).
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The author then goes on to give a caricature of the doctrine, even though, in his opinion, the church no longer believes or, at least, never talks about it: “While most seem to have moved away from the concept of double predestination (God is glorified by those assigned to hell as well as by those accepted into heaven), the biblically based concept of election remains a major factor in our theological structure” (39).
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He then goes on to say, “[Election] is not a topic that plays well from the pulpit. It is an arrogant position that may consign good acquaintances to hell while granting heaven to only a select few” (39).
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The author then goes on to define what he thinks election really is. “When God called (elected) Abraham, God mentioned nothing about Abraham’s being translated to heaven after death. Instead, the promise was wrapped up with what Abraham and his descendants were to do in their daily lives” (39). This is a time-worn definition, repeatedly refuted, that election means nothing more than God’s choice of a nation or individual for a specific task in the world; in this article that task is said to be social action.
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All the Reformed theologians throughout the ages, including Bavinck, Kuyper, Turretin and many others in the Reformed tradition, and Rutherford, Gillespie and others in the Presbyterian tradition, not to mention the outstanding theologians at Dordt and Westminster, and the Reformers themselves, are brushed aside with a careless wave of the hand and dismissed as responsible for an albatross hanging about the neck of Reformed and Presbyterian Churches. Speaking of arrogance, brushing aside in a cavalier fashion outstanding theologians to me is a towering arrogance that cannot be excused. Such dismissal of the traditions of the church of Christ is, of course, done in the interests of a “new Calvinism,” a “neo-Calvinism”, which is no Calvinism at all, but which is, after all, a categorical dismissal of Scripture itself, in which all these doctrines are to be found. And so it becomes a towering arrogance in its own right that lifts man’s vain speculations to a position higher than the Scriptures.
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Such ecclesiastical disaster comes upon defenders of common grace. It may take years, but it comes, with astonishing certainty. We do well to take heed.
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With warm regards,
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Prof. Hanko

Christ: His human nature and His love--for whom? (19c)

Dear Forum Members,
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In the last letter I addressed the question whether any possibility of kindness towards the reprobate exists in order that God may be delivered from the charge of being unkind and tyrannical. I answered this with an emphatic “No.” Neither Scripture, the Reformed Confessions, nor the Westminster Confession of Faith speaks of this general kindness of God. I stressed rather, that God is a holy God, that any sin against Him is terrible, and that God is also a God of perfect justice. In His holiness and justice He cannot overlook sin and be kind or gracious to the sinner – apart from Christ.
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Nor can God be charged with tyranny. He is good in all He does, even in His just judgment of the wicked. It is not tyrannical for God to punish the wicked with a punishment commensurate with their monstrous sin against His great holiness.
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Nevertheless, behind God’s just punishment of the wicked is God’s eternal decree of reprobation. According to this decree, God’s purpose eternally is to manifest His justice in the way of the punishment of the sinner.
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These considerations are closely related to other questions to which we now turn.
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One question that was raised by correspondence was the question whether Jesus, from the view point of His humanity, loved all men. The argument goes like this. When our Lord Jesus Christ came into our flesh, He came under the law (Gal. 4:4). The law demands of everyone under it that he love God and his neighbor as himself. A man’s neighbor includes all those without distinction with whom he comes into contact. No man under the law knows who is elect and who is reprobate, except our Lord Jesus Christ, who did know who were His people and who were not. And so, because Christ also was under the law, even though He knew His own and knew also who were not among His sheep, He had to love the reprobate as well as the elect if He was to keep the law – although this was only in His human nature.
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I recall that there was a controversy over this very point in a Presbyterian Church a number of years ago. The controversy centered in the gracious gospel offer, but involved the same line of argumentation as is used in this question we now consider. The defender of this view talked personally with me to explain his position. In order to explain his position on the discrepancy between Christ’s love for all revealed in the gospel offer and Christ’s sovereign love for His people only, he appealed to the distinction between the divine nature and the human nature of Christ. He claimed that Christ in His divine nature loved only the elect, but in His human nature, He loved all men.
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He was correctly charged by his church with Nestorianism, an ancient heresy, which separated the two natures of our Lord so completely that Christ possessed, according to this view, two persons. Nestorianism was condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD and by the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
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All that our Savior did while on earth and all that He now does is His work as the divine-human Mediator. It is wrong to say that Christ did one thing in His divine nature apart from His human nature, or to say that Christ does something according to His human nature without the involvement of the divine nature. It is yet more wrong to say that Christ in His human nature could do something completely at odds with His divine nature, so that the two natures did not agree with each other. Hence, in answer to the question: Did not Christ, who came under the law, fulfill the law by loving all his neighbors, whether elect or reprobate? we insist again that the Biblical answer is, No; Christ who knew His own that were given Him of the Father loved His neighbor, but only His elect neighbor. This truth is, in fact, clearly stated in John 13:1: “Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.”
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I really do not understand very well the force of this argument. Neither for Christ, nor for us, is our neighbor every man who lives in the world. My neighbor is the one with whom I come into contact, with whom I must live, who is on my pathway, who requires my attention, who places me under certain obligations towards him. My neighbor is my wife, my child, my fellow saint – as well as the man along side of me in the shop. And I am called to love him in such a way that I, caring for whatever need he may have, seek his salvation. Love always seeks the good of the object of that love; and no greater good can we show to someone we love that to seek his salvation. I do this because I do not know who are elect and who are reprobate, and it may please God, should he be an elect, to use my love for him to bring him to salvation (Matt. 5:16).
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But the Lord loved His neighbor too. He sought the salvation of His neighbor and in fact accomplished it. But His neighbor was the one for whom He was sent into the world to die, the elect in this world whom the Father had given Him from all eternity. That neighbor was by no means kind towards Christ. That neighbor opposed him, rejected His gospel of the kingdom and finally crucified Him. But the power of the love of Christ on the cross, brought and still brings that neighbor to faith and salvation.
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This truth is clearly taught by the Lord Himself. At the time the Lord received a delegation from the imprisoned John the Baptist to inquire whether He was the Messiah or whether another was still to come, the Lord addressed the people by extolling the important place John had occupied in the working out of God’s salvation in Christ (Matt. 11:7-15). At the conclusion of this sermon, the Lord pronounced dreadful woes on the cities of Judah and spoke of the fact that Sodom and Gomorrah as well as Tyre and Sidon would not be punished as severely as Capernaum, Bethsaida and Chorazin (Matt. 11:20-24).
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Immediately after this solemn and divine pronouncement of judgment on apostate Judah, it seems the Lord paused to pray – although He must have prayed audibly: “I thank thee Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight” (Matt. 11:25, 26). This prayer was not, however, a conclusion to which the Lord was driven by what he observed as He witnessed the unbelief of the leading cities of Palestine; He not only acknowledged that such hiding and revealing belong to the sovereign work of His Father (“Thou hast hid these things . . . and revealed them . . .”), but He also emphatically states that He is on the earth to carry out this divine purpose of His Father: (“All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him” (27).
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I see no problem here.
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We can consider two additional questions in this letter. They are related to each other. One question asks about the possibility of hating a man’s sin, but loving the man himself. The figure of a judge is used. A judge may be utterly repelled by a man’s sin, but nevertheless have a sense of pity and compassion for the man. It is not necessarily true, so the questioner argues, that love and hatred are totally incompatible.
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The second question, related to the first, refers to Galatians 5:22, 23, where the fruit of the Spirit is defined as principally love. Did not Christ, so the question goes, have the Spirit? And did He not, therefore, love all those with whom He came into contact? The same can be said of us in our calling. We have the Spirit and if we show the fruit of the Spirit, we show love for our fellow man. Parenthetically, I observe that the question is reminiscent of our modern judicial system in which more pity is shown to the criminal than to the one against whom a crime has been committed. And, again, I remind you that sin is against “the most high majesty of God” (Heidelberg Catechism, 4/10).
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Now it seems to me that we ought to be clear on what is meant by love and hatred. And the questioner himself recognizes that an understanding of these two terms is essential to the problem.
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Love is a not a sentimental and romantic feeling. While love certainly has to do with the emotions, the emotions are, quite naturally, a part of the mind and will. Love is far more than a feeling. Scripture gives us what is almost a formal definition of love in Colossians 3:14: “And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.” The word translated “charity” in many places by our AV is, of course, the word for “love.” Now the text says two things about “love”. It is first of all a bond, and second, it is a bond of perfection. This definition holds whether we are talking about the love of God for Himself or for us, or the love we have for God or for our neighbor. Love is therefore, a bond of friendship and fellowship. But it is a bond that is characterized by perfection.
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Hatred, on the other hand, is exactly the opposite. Hatred is repulsion, abhorrence and total refusal to have fellowship with someone. God loves Himself as the holy and perfect One and has fellowship with Himself. That fellowship is a bond between the three persons of the holy trinity that is characterized by life, love and happiness.
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God loves His people, even while they are yet sinners (Rom. 5:8). Impossible, you say? Yes, indeed! But it is possible because God loves them in Christ and they are without sin, holy as God is, in Christ. He establishes with them a bond of fellowship that is characterized by life, love and happiness. And so great is the love of God that it reaches down to us through Christ and transforms us into a holy church in which God’s holiness itself is revealed.
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God’s hatred of the wicked is His revulsion of them because of their sins. (Psalm 5:5: "Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity;” Not: “Thou hatest iniquity,” but “Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity.”) God does not give them even for a moment any sense of His fellowship with them. He drives them away from His presence and causes them to experience His curse. When they die, He puts them into hell where they are made to suffer the just judgment of their sins. And hell is as far from God as one can be. God hated Esau, not only Esau’s sins (Malachi 1:3).
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We are called to love God; that is, to enter into fellowship with Him, live in the consciousness of that fellowship and give praise to Him as the infinitely holy One. We love Him because He first loved us and shedding abroad His love within our hearts, He makes us love Him (Rom. 5:5, I John 4:10). The work of making us as holy as He is includes the work of causing us to love Him, for holiness that comes from God draws us to Him and into His fellowship.
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Yet, as we have previously observed, God’s decree of reprobation stands behind man’s sin and punishment. Once again, this is true, not in such a way that God is the author of man’s sin, but in such a way that God’s sovereignty is revealed in the way of man’s sin and God’s just punishment for sin.
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We may not like this truth; we may protest against it; but let it be known that our puny and worthless objections do not (thank God!) change the truth and will not ever change the fact that God is absolutely sovereign in all He does. We add to our sin when we persist in our questioning. It is our calling to bow in worship and adoration. “Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with must longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction” (Rom. 920-22)?
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The difficult part comes in our calling to love our neighbor when our neighbor is wicked. When our neighbor is holy as we are, that is, also a saved sinner, that love is (at least, theologically; in fact very difficult) no problem. We love our wives, our children and our fellow saints because we love God as they love God. We have fellowship with them and live in the bond of life, love and joy.
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But some of our neighbors are wicked. How are we to love them? This is how we must do it. The answer seems so obvious. Because love is the bond of holiness, our love for them is an earnest desire to have them saved. We do not know who are God’s people and who are not. We hope and pray they may be elect, loved by God, and so we seek their salvation. This does not mean that we neglect their needs; God placed them on our pathway because they need us. But we supply their needs in order to seek their salvation. We bring them food when they are hungry, but in order that we may display the love God has for us who are undeserving sinners; we, therefore, tell them that such love as God has for us, poor sinners, can and also will be theirs, if they repent of their sins and turn to Christ in faith.
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Obviously such love is a “one-way street,” for we refuse to have fellowship with them in their sin. In that sense of the word, we love them, but hate their sin. We, in our love for them, condemn their sin and seek their repentance. We refuse to have fellowship with them in their sin, just because we love them and seek their salvation. God acts towards us in the same way, though in an infinitely higher way. He shows His hatred of sin and His love for us in giving us Jesus Christ – while we were yet sinners. And in Jesus Christ we are sanctified and have the true fellowship of love with Him.
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How that all works out in our lives is obvious. Our love for our neighbors has the same two-fold effect as the preaching of the gospel, for that kind of witness is empowered by the gospel. Our love for our neighbor will either save or harden. It will save our wives, our children, our fellow saints and God’s elect among the unbelievers. But the love we show to our neighbor will also harden the reprobate in their sin. God does good in all the gifts He gives them and they are hardened in their hatred against God. So with our gifts to them. Try it once. Go to them in God’s name and in the name of Christ. The more we bring to them our earnest entreaties for them to repent and believe in Christ, the angrier they become, for they do not want to be told that they are sinners who will perish if they do not repent.
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God works His salvation through us, for He always uses His church to accomplish His purpose in the world. As the wicked increase in their hardening we find it increasingly difficult to have anything to do with them. They want nothing to do with us. They despise the gospel we bring to them and despise us for continuing to bring it. They demonstrate that they hate God and hate those who represent the cause of God in the world. And so the time comes when the child of God cannot even have that limited one-way-street-love any more. He can no longer seek their salvation, for they slam the door in his face. Every child of God has experienced this. And the believer’s response is: “Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee” (Psalm 139:21)?
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For myself as well as for others who sincerely desire to know the truth of these matters, it is essential that we begin with God and not with ourselves or our conceptions of what God ought to be like. As I said before, we cannot climb the ladder of our own thinking to reach the dwelling place of God who makes the heavens His throne and the earth His footstool. We will always end up fashioning our conception of God according to the pattern of what we think He ought to be.
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God must reveal Himself; that is, He must tell us who He is and what He does. Scripture is very, very clear on how great God is. I sometimes think it would be well for us simply to sit down and read Job 38-41, for, if we truly hear God speak, we will say with Job, “I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak; I will demand of thee, and declare unto me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:1-6).
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Or perhaps we ought to read Paul’s cry at the conclusion of Romans 9-11: “”O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen” (11:33-36).
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That is a summons to lay our hands on our mouths and bow in the earth in worship!
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With warmest regards,
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Prof Hanko

The Sovereignty of God -- and sin (19b)

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Greetings to our forum members,
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In my last installment I was answering some questions that had been raised in connection with my assertion that God’s kindness, mercy, grace, etc. are shown by God only to His elect, and that the reprobate wicked are never in any sense of the word the objects of these delightful attributes of God. The questions inquired into the possibility of kindness and grace to the reprobate wicked, which would make God less tyrannical, hateful and even cruel towards men.
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A few more things have to be said about this matter before we can move on; and, indeed, other questions included in the letter have to be answered. I am glad that I can address these problems and questions that arise in the minds of our readers, not only because they are necessary questions, but also because they are asked, not in the spirit of confrontation, but expressing a desire to learn of these things more completely. The questions give such an opportunity and it is my prayer that the answers will help as well. We shall pursue this matter a bit further.
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It is difficult for us, mere men and sinners as well, to take sin seriously. We are seemingly so accustomed to sin, also in our own lives, that we are frequently unaware of it, or if we are aware of it, we tend to brush it aside lightly. The world has constructed a false doctrine about the non-existence of sin; and the apostatizing church has bought into worldly philosophy in its efforts to minimize sin. Divorce and remarriage are no sins; Sabbath desecration is no sin; wrong doctrine is to be tolerated; “minor” lapses in conduct are to be overlooked; “white lies” are a necessary part of life; and such evils as materialism, worldliness, feminism, not to mention such horrible sins as immorality and homosexuality, are opening practiced and generally accepted as a normal part of life. Our tendency is, as we are also affected by the world, to become insensitive to sin and thus come to a position where sin is tolerated.
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Such a cavalier attitude towards sin influences our thinking, and the result is that sin is no longer the horrible monster that Scripture makes it. Scripture points out in blistering language that not only sin as sinful words, deeds, thoughts and desires is abhorrent to God, but also that we are, apart from grace, sinful people, with depraved natures who can only be described in terms of being clothed with filthy rags (Is. 64:6, literally, menstrual rags), covered with pus-dripping sores (Is. 1:6), leprous from top to bottom, and such other graphic illustrations. We have sinful natures that are totally depraved and for which there is no cure – outside the balm of Gilead. These sinful natures, the source of a river of sewage, are also our responsibility before God. We have winked cheerfully at our reflection in the mirror as we contemplate our own favorable features, but God sees, apart from Christ, repulsive people whom His soul abhors.
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The measure of the seriousness of our sins in the eyes of God is to be found in the impenetrable depths of the suffering of the Son of God. God gave His Son to an awful cross! Why? God takes sin seriously, for He is a holy God. God will give His beloved Son to hell’s degradation and agony to satisfy His fury against sin. One who bows in shame at the foot of the cross realizes how dreadful sin is. My wife and I were reading in our devotions that sad book of Lamentations 4. If God deals so harshly as there described by the prophet, with His people, how must He deal with the wicked? (I Peter 4:17, 18 asks the same rhetorical question.)
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All this judgment of God against sin is in no way eased by an appeal to the sovereignty of God. God is sovereign. His sovereignty does not mean that we are not responsible for our sin. We are! Every sinner knows it – deep down, where he will not even permit himself to venture in his own thoughts. In the judgment day when all stand before the white throne of Christ, not one sinner will open his mouth in protestation. Hell is the anguish that it is, because it is the endless memory of our sins for which we are to blame and for which we now suffer.
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The decree of reprobation is also sovereign. Reprobation does not imply that God’s eternal, all-wise, sovereignly good and holy decree is the cause of sin. Reformed people have turned away in horror at such a thought. But it does mean that God sovereignly accomplishes His purpose in damning the wicked in the way of man’s sin, so that God remains sovereign over sin, but also everlastingly free from sin’s blot or guilt. Even reprobation underscores the seriousness of sin.
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Is your response: “I cannot understand these things”? I did not keep track of how many times I was asked about these things during the years of my ministry, but I think I am correct when I say that in my catechetical instruction over the years, no single question has been more frequently asked by catechumens in doctrine classes than the question: How does one harmonize God’s sovereignty, which includes sovereignty over sin, with man’s responsibility?
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It is not my intention to go into this question in this letter. I only want to emphasize one point: Both God’s sovereignty (also over sin) and man’s responsibility are so clearly taught in Scripture, and so frequently in the same breath, (See Acts 2:23 and 4:26, 27 as only two examples), that they cannot be denied. Nor can we dismiss these two ideas with the off-handed remark that they are mutually exclusive, and contradictory; they are not. They fit together without contradiction. – even if we cannot understand fully how this is possible. God is absolutely sovereign – even over sin; I am a wretched, hell-bound sinner; I receive what I deserve when judgment comes. I need Christ. I shall cling to Him.
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I stress these things, because, in the final analysis we must be God-centered in our thinking, not man-centered. We can have such feelings of sympathy in our hearts for mankind and such horror at the thought of everlasting hell that we turn away with the shivering comment: “Such things cannot possibly be true of God. He would not take a baby out of this life. He would not put a man in hell where there is anguish and pain forever. He would not send tornados and tsunamis that kill thousands.” Such language ought never to cross the lips of one who fears God.
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God is God! He is the Holy One who inhabits eternity. He is infinitely above us. We cannot climb the ladder of our own thinking and reasoning to find God and describe Him. He dwells in an unsearchable light. He is beyond finding out. If we would collect the knowledge of all God’s faithful servants, what the church of all ages has collectively said of God and His works, into one whole, it is less than a thimble full of water in comparison with all the oceans of the earth. He made them all! He set their bounds! He controls their movements! He is God.
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“O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?” (Rom. 9:20). And this comes after, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” (9:13). “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (vs. 13). “So it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy” (vs. 16). “Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth” (vs. 18).
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Before such a great God we can do nothing but fall on our faces and worship.
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It is no wonder that men from the church, men who ought to be spending their time defending the great name of God, are ashamed to confess God’s absolute sovereignty. And, almost inevitably, when these churchmen launch their attacks against a God-centered theology in some vain hope of rescuing man from his shame and degradation, their attacks are against the doctrine of sovereign reprobation. They apparently consider this doctrine the Achilles’ heel of true Reformed theology. They do this, it would seem, to appeal to the sympathies of men without regard for the transcendent greatness of the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth.
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Calvin’s theology was centered in God’s glory. His enemies called him a “God-intoxicated man”. He was, they said, “drunk with God.” They meant it as a slur. It is the highest of all compliments. Would God we had more God-intoxicated men today.
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There are no other options available to us: either we are “God-intoxicated” or we are man-intoxicated. The latter will lead to forming our own images of God in our own minds, but images nonetheless; images as awful as Baal, Moloch or Ashtaroth.
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Who by searching can find out God? We may be puzzled by problems that arise in our own minds concerning truths Scripture sets down, but what of all the works of God can you and I understand? Do you understand how God forms a baby in its mother’s womb? Do you understand that God creates wine by causing vines to produce grapes? Do you understand how a blade of grass grows, nourished by the dirt? I do not. Nor does anyone. I am not disturbed by my inability to understand the ways of a sovereign God. To try by refusing to believe Scripture’s teachings is to be kinder, more beneficent, more gracious than God Himself is. But God will not allow Himself to be squeezed into molds of our devising.
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Let us then join the company of saints in all ages and say with them, “Oh God, how great thou art!”
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With warmest regards,
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Prof Hanko